


Always

by gremlins-came-and-got-me (Scared_Beings_in_the_Dark)



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Blind Stiles, Character Death, F/M, Full Shift Hales, M/M, Mage Stiles, Past Kate Argent/Derek Hale, Warning: Kate Argent, full shift derek, past underage relationship, pre-Sterek - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-02
Updated: 2018-03-02
Packaged: 2019-03-25 23:52:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13845660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scared_Beings_in_the_Dark/pseuds/gremlins-came-and-got-me
Summary: When Derek discovers that his wife is not the reformed hunter she promised him she was, he is forced to run for his life. Somehow, he ends up at a little magic bookshop run by a blind mage.





	Always

**Author's Note:**

> Story-spoiler notes in the end notes. Only read them if you want the story given away.
> 
> **Please note:** I am not vision impaired (I wear glasses, but that's it). As such, I have been intentionally vague with Stiles' day to day life. If something stands out as absolutely wrong, please let me know. Thank you.

Derek doesn’t wait for Kate to come back.

He throws a change of clothes in his backpack, the same one thirteen-year-old him had been so proud of because it wasn’t a cartoon character, and leaves the door open, his key to their apartment on the dresser in their bedroom.

He takes two other items: a wolfsbane bullet and his wedding ring. He found the bullet when he was looking for some of Kate’s antihistamines to help him with a troublesome sneeze. Turns out, he’s allergic to the bullet because of the wolfsbane.

Derek has always known that Kate was a hunter. He’d thought she was reformed.

Shows how much he knows.

Derek curses his own stupidity when he has to cross a four-lane highway on nothing but four paws in the middle of the night. Headlights bear down on him no matter how fast he runs.

He thanks his dark coat when he makes it to the other side and is able to slip into the forest with no one the wiser.

He knows Kate will start searching for him when she gets home and finds him gone. It’s his own fault for trusting her. He’s been so stupid these last ten years.

How could he have missed something as obvious as Kate’s current involvement with the hunters? She has meetings all week every week, with her job as a manager of a processing plant. Lately, she’d had more meetings than usual, and Derek had been stupid, so stupid, to think that it was just her job.

If he pushes himself, he can make it sixty miles before he’ll have to rest. He can only hope that it’ll be enough of a start that he can stay ahead of Kate and whatever hunters she can mobilize.

If he can reach California before her, then he knows he’s home free. California has been the only state to adopt a protection for endangered species that exhibit human-like intelligence. Unfortunately for Derek, if he wants to live as a werewolf, he has to stay within the borders of the Golden State.

Which isn’t going to be a problem for Derek. His family had moved there when he was in high school. Derek had thrown a fit—he had friends here and he was about to make varsity—and his parents had entrusted his care to his uncle who was staying in the area for a few more years to close out the family business.

Of course, Peter had been too busy with work to notice when the new teacher started hitting on Derek.

Despite the slimy-slick wrongness he felt every time they kissed, Derek still loved being with Kate, and had decided to stay when he graduated. The fact that Kate had proposed after he received his diploma (and been dismissed from her job teaching sophomore mathematics the same day), should have been a major clue, but all Derek could think was that they could finally tell his friends that they were together.

Derek puts his head down and runs harder. The miles melt away, and he gets deep into Pennsylvania before he collapses by a stream, too tired to move more than sticking his tongue out to soak in the running water.

Once he’s sufficiently rested and hydrated, he sniffs out an abandoned badger den and hollows it out enough to squeeze inside. He’ll hunt before he leaves tomorrow. For now, he needs rest.

Derek curls up and tucks his nose under his tail.

He doesn’t dream.

Derek manages to stick to mostly isolated areas and makes good time.

He has a few close encounters where he can smell gun oil and different strains of wolfsbane. He has a particularly harrowing experience in southern Iowa when he stops, as a human, to get a shower and something hot to eat. The local bar he steps into is run by a hunter family. They don’t seem to suspect him until a radio in the basement crackles to life, his description coming through.

A kid, barely out of high school, comes running up, skids to a stop, and stares at Derek.

Derek hurriedly peels off some cash to cover his tab and grabs his backpack.

Surprisingly, the hunters let him leave. To give him a sporting chance?

Either way, Derek slips behind the first barn he can find, sheds his clothes and stuffs them into the backpack before he bounds away as a wolf.

After that, he makes good time, and he finds himself crossing the border into California inside of a month.

He thinks he angled too high and he’s in northern California instead of farther south where his family settled when they moved.

Hopefully now that he’s actually in California, he can travel without having to worry about hunters. He’s worn out, tired, and the soup he had in Iowa is a long gone memory.

The town he trots into is small by NYC standards. He’d estimate the population in the low thousands just from the smell alone.

He sneezes as he passes a small bookshop, the wards on it tickling the fur inside his nose.

He pauses, cocking his head. Wards? Here?

Derek turns around and pads back to the bookshop’s door. Inside, he sees dusty tomes and sprigs of dried plants littered over every available counter. The only clear place is a desk in the center of the room. Derek sneezes again, and a faint voice calls, “Bless you.”

Derek sneezes again, sniffing deeply. He can’t identify half the plants, but they don’t seem toxic to him, just irritating.

He crosses the threshold, fully expecting the wards to resist him. Instead, aside from a bit of static electricity that makes his fur stand on end, he makes it inside easily.

Then, he sits on his haunches, parsing through the various scents. The wards and the plants both make his nose itch, and the dust on the books makes him cough. But, under all the various smells, he finds a spiced earth tone that leads into the back. He waits for the voice to sound again when he forces a sneeze.

Nothing happens, and Derek gets bored, so he stands up again and wanders the aisles, nosing at books and inkpots left too close to the floor.

“Watch it, buddy,” the voice says right by his ear, and Derek spins around to come face to knees with a man that at first glance appears to be too young to be running the shop alone.

Second glance reveals him to be older than Derek thought at first. His patchy stubble is well on its way to being a scraggly beard, but it does nothing to hide the moles splattered across his skin.

His eyes are an interesting shade of brown, catching light almost like a wolf’s and yet having no color behind it. The skin around his eyes looks irritated, red and inflamed. A recent injury, Derek guesses.

He steps sideways, his footsteps nearly soundless on the floor. The man’s head swivels slowly to follow him, but his eyes remain unfocused. Derek moves forward, completely soundless and the man continues to stare where he’d been.

Blind then, Derek surmises.

He huffs softly, to let the man know where he is now, and the man’s head snaps onto him, eyes swinging back and forth searching for something he’ll never see.

“Look, buddy, I don’t need any trouble,” he says. “Just bring what you need to the register and I’ll get you on your way.”

Derek sighs, lunging forward to press his nose against the man’s wrist.

“Oh,” the man says softly, hand rising up to stroke at the short fur around Derek’s ears. “ _Oh_. You’re a dog.”

Derek licks his wrist, tasting magic. This man is a mage. Derek’s mother used to tell Derek and his sisters that there were only two kinds of people that could be trusted: pack and mages.

“How’d you get in?” the mage asks, and Derek butts his head against his hand—not just to get more pets even though they feel amazing. Kate hadn’t liked touching aside from sex. Derek misses it.

“Did my wards let you in?”

Derek sneezes in response, and the mage, amused, blesses him again.

“Hey, Stiles?” another voice calls from the doorway. The mage turns toward it, a frown creasing his forehead. “You in here?”

“Where else would I be, Scotty?” the mage calls back.

Another man, short curls, a shaped beard that does nothing to disguise the unevenness of his jaw line, and sunglasses perched on the end of his nose steps into the shop. The man recoils at the sight of Derek. “Dude, I know you’re resisting getting a seeing-eye dog, but that’s kind of ridiculous.”

“What is?” Stiles asks.

Scotty points at Derek, and Derek fixes him with an unimpressed stare. Scotty realizes his mistake almost immediately and awkwardly clears his throat. “I know you’ve always loved wolves, but did you have to pick the most wolf-looking dog at the shelter?”

Stiles rolls his eyes and taps the side of his head. “Do you _think_ I could have picked out any dog based on its looks? Huh, Scott? Really?”

Scotty-Scott looks chastised, and Derek wants to smirk at him, but canine mouths leave much to be desired in the way of expressing human emotions.

“Fine,” Scotty-Scott says. “Whatever. Don’t call me when you get mauled because you decided to trust a wild animal.”

“She’s not wild. Are you, Michelle?”

Derek lets his teeth graze Stiles’ hand. Scotty-Scott gasps, but Stiles just laughs.

“Not a female, eh? Is Miguel better?”

Derek licks his hand, and Stiles laughs again. Scotty-Scott sighs.

“I’m leaving now, Stiles. Call me if you need anything.”

“Will do, Scotty-my-boy. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.”

“What door?” Scotty-Scott asks, stepping back through the open doorway. Stiles swings two fingers in an arc, and a door that definitely wasn’t there before slams shut behind Scotty-Scott.

Derek has never so desperately wanted to break his own cover as he does now. He has so many questions for the mage, but they’ll have to wait. As soon as the door closes, Stiles slumps down onto the floor, head in his hands.

“I’m a mess, aren’t I?” he asks rhetorically. Derek sidles up to him and lays his head on his knee. Stiles pats him absently, fingers coming awfully close to his eyes. “Why haven’t you shifted back yet?” he asks.

Derek draws back, studying Stiles for a long moment before he puts his head back on his knee, hoping that Stiles can understand his answer.

“Yeah, I get it. It’s not safe. But, dude, you’re in California. There is no safer state for your kind.”

Derek huffs. Maybe he should shift back? It would be easier to try to explain with words instead of actions.

He moves away from Stiles again, making sure to clack his nails on the floor so that he can follow him. Derek curls down in a shady corner. He rolls with the shift, standing up for the first time in a week as a human.

“Dude, what happened? Where are you?”

Derek clears his throat softly, digging through his backpack for his clothing. Even though Stiles can’t see him, he still feels embarrassed to be naked in his shop.

“My name is Derek,” he says roughly. Stiles turns his whole body, and Derek flushes under his off-center gaze. “I’m from New York.”

“And what brings you to California, Derek from New York?” Stiles asks. “Aside from the fact that California has a non-hunting law in place.”

“There’s that,” Derek agrees. “And my family moved to this state a few years ago.”

“And they didn’t take you?” Stiles’ eyebrows rise.

Derek coughs. “I opted to stay. But, now I’m here. I think my family lives in southern California, and this is northern California.”

“Yeah, you’re in Beacon Hills. It’s pretty far north. How far south are you looking to go? I’ve got a Jeep you can borrow if it’s not too far.”

Derek scratches his head. “Uh, two problems,” he says. “One, I don’t know where they are. I don’t have their address anymore.”

“Okay,” Stiles says. “Not a terribly large issue. I can find them for you. What’s the second problem?”

“I don’t know how to drive.”

Stiles’ eyebrows go higher. “What?”

Ashamed, Derek looks down at his bare feet. “It was New York. My family moved when I was fifteen and my uncle didn’t have time to teach me.”

“How old are you now?”

“25.”

“And you still don’t know how to drive? How’d you get here? Run across the continental U.S. as a wolf?”

Derek stays silent, and Stiles mutters, “Oh my god,” under his breath.

“So,” he finally says after a long pause, “that second problem is a doozy.” He sighs, shrugging. “Well, let’s focus on one thing at a time. Let’s find your family.”

Derek pulls out his wedding ring and hands it to Stiles. “Can you make sure that the person who gave that to me can’t find me too?”

“Sure. I’m not just any parlor magician,” Stiles says cheerfully.

“You’re a mage,” Derek finishes. Stiles stumbles over nothing—Derek checks—and turns around to face him again.

“How do you know that?”

“I’m a werewolf,” Derek says. “How’d you know what I was?”

“You tripped my wards when you came in.”

“Your wards made me sneeze.”

“So we gave each other away,” Stiles says. “Okay. That’s cool. You mind giving me a hand with the necessary ingredients? I’m still a little unsteady even now.”

Derek nods, and then says, “Yeah,” feeling like an idiot.

Stiles nods too. “Good. Now, go fetch me some Botrychium lunaria.”

“Uh,” Derek says, “what if I don’t know what that is?”

“Oh my god, I labeled the bottles. Go search the east side of the shop.”

It doesn’t get easier after that.

“Are you sure I’m safe here?” Derek asks when Stiles declares the potion ready for use—in a week’s time. “You’re not going to turn me in, are you?”

Stiles snorts. “Why would I do that? This is California. You’re almost human here.”

“Some people might not agree with that.” Derek studies his ring, rubbing a thumb over the embedded diamonds. “There could still be hunters here.”

“And that’s one demographic that’s not allowed in my shop.”

Derek doesn’t feel reassured, and he spends much of the week in his wolf form, hiding under Stiles’ desk and occasionally helping collect books or plants for Stiles’ clientele, none of whom appear to be hunters in disguise.

Over supper one night, as Stiles throws pizza crusts in various directions and Derek tries to catch them all, no matter how erratically thrown, Stiles casually mentions that Scotty-Scott can teach Derek to drive.

Derek pauses just long enough for one of the crusts to bounce off his nose. Stiles crows in delight even though Derek knows he can’t see him.

“Come on, dude,” Stiles prompts after a moment. “Shift back and tell me what you think!”

Derek hesitates, and he isn’t sure why.

He still wants to find his family, but lately, he’s been thinking that he’s safer here. If Stiles can find his family, so can Kate. Derek trusts the laws to protect his family, but he’s still married to her. What if marital law outweighs the anti-hunters law?

How could he have been so stupid as to put himself in this position? Derek doesn’t deserve to be with his family, not when he’s endangered them by angering a hunter so thoroughly.

“Hey, buddy, what are you thinking? Yea or nay to learning to drive?”

Derek shifts back finally. “No,” he says, and walks away. He can hear Stiles calling after him long after he drops back into his wolf-form and lopes out into the streets.

He doesn’t come back for three days.

When he does finally find his way to Stiles’ shop, tail between his legs because the mage has done nothing but try to help him, Derek makes his way inside carefully, trusting the wards to alert Stiles.

“We’re closed,” Stiles tells him. He’s sitting absolutely still, surrounded by a ring of broken pots. Derek huffs at that, nudging the shards aside as he goes to Stiles’ side, laying his head down on his lap in apology.

“Oh, it’s you,” Stiles says, closed off. Derek turns his head so that he can peek at him with one eye. Stiles blinks, sniffling, and rubbing a tear off his cheek. “Why are you here?”

Derek shifts back to human but leaves his head on Stiles’ lap. “I got scared. You know the ring I gave you?”

“I gave it back,” Stiles says shortly.

“I know. It’s my wedding ring. I’m terrified of the woman who married me. I don’t want her to find me. I don’t want her to find my family.”

“Oh,” Stiles says. Then, “You’re married? Dude, you’re 25. When did you get married, right out of college?”

Derek shakes his head. “I didn’t go to college. She married me right out of high school. She was my teacher.”

The hurt and confusion in Stiles’ scent quickly turns to anger. “Dude, what?”

“My wife, she was my teacher. We’ve been in a relationship since I was fifteen. We got married seven years ago.”

“Do you still love her?”

“I—” Derek pauses. Does he still love Kate? _Can_ he? “I don’t think so,” he finally answers. “She’s a hunter. She told me she was reformed. I was going to tell her what I am but then I found out she still goes out and murders my kind. I thought she loved me, but now I don’t know.”

“The potion is ready. You can use it if and when you’re ready, but Derek, I want you to know that this place will always be safe for you. It may not be safe for me until I memorize the layout, but this place will always be here for you. Promise me that you’ll use it if you need it.”

“I promise,” Derek whispers. “Can I make it safe for you too?”

‘Sure,” Stiles says. “Stop leaving your backpack wherever it falls. Make sure you put away anything you take out. Tell me if someone’s moved something before I run into it.”

“Deal.” Derek stands up. “I’m going to put on some clothes now. I’ll be back in a minute to clean up the pottery. Don’t move.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

They fall into an easy routine. Derek spends most of his days as a human now, talking to Stiles, helping with customers, and reading Stiles’ books (except his grimoire that he won’t let anyone touch, not even Scotty-Scott). He also learns to drive from Scotty-Scott who thinks he’s Stiles’ cousin from South America (of course, Scotty-Scott focuses on the fact that Stiles apparently named his dog after his cousin. “My _favorite_ cousin,” Stiles crows later when Derek tells him).

Derek also spends a lot of time studying the vial of locator potion Stiles made for him. It’s been months. Surely Kate would have found him by now?

He watches the news constantly, but there haven’t been any riots or supernatural-related deaths reported in southern California for over seven years.

Maybe he will look for them when he finally manages to remember how to shift gears in Stiles’ Jeep without flooding the engine.

The choice is taken from him one afternoon.

Derek is out back of the shop watering Stiles’ garden when he hears the crunch of tires on the gravel patch Stiles has for his father and Scotty-Scott when they come help with the shop.

The scent of _Chanel No. 5_ has him freezing for a precious moment. As soon as he un-sticks, he swivels to stare at Kate Argent as she climbs out of her car.

He panics, racing back inside, and shouting for Stiles.

Stiles finds him tucked under the desk, already curled into his wolf-form.

“Hey, what’s wrong? What happened?” Stiles pats him, and immediately pulls back, a look of concern pinching his features. “You’re shaking,” he remarks quietly.

Derek’s ears are nearly flat on his head, and he’s panting heavily. He’s a second away from snapping, and Stiles’ usually calming touches are doing nothing but making him more on edge. Any second now, Kate will walk through the door and she’ll either burn the building down around them or she’ll take Derek back to New York.

Her heels announce her presence, and Derek covers his eyes with his paw, fighting back a whimper and a growl.

“Hello,” Stiles calls. “Can I help you? Maybe find something for you?”

“It appears as though you’ve already found what I’m looking for,” Kate says, honey-smooth. Stiles nudges Derek with his foot, like he knows that Derek needs the reassurance.

“What exactly are you looking for?” Stiles asks innocently.

“My husband,” Kate replies just as sweetly. “There he is, cowering under your desk like the ball-less wonder he is.”

“Ma’am, you must be mistaken. This is my seeing-eye dog.”

“That’s not a seeing-eye dog,” Kate corrects, saccharine flooding her voice. “That’s a wolf.”

“Those bastards!” Stiles bursts out. “They lied to me! They said he was a mastiff.” With a flick of his finger, Stiles activates a barrier around his desk. Kate laughs, and it chills Derek with how cold it is.

“Pathetic.” She reaches through the barrier and grabs Derek’s wedding band. He’d left it on Stiles’ desk after their discussion of Derek’s past life. “Do you know what happens when you try to enchant an item that has already been enchanted?” she asks.

“The enchantments cancel each other out,” Stiles replies.

“And?” Kate prompts.

“And it makes any magic cast in its presence lesser, more easily thwarted.”

“See? I knew you couldn’t be as good as they all claimed. You can’t even sense a low-level enchantment.”

The ring was enchanted? To do what? Derek has to wonder if Kate knew where he was all along. If so, it’s a good thing he hasn’t used the locator potion.

“If you don’t mind, I’m going to take what I came here for.” Kate grabs Derek by the scruff of his neck and drags him out from under the desk.

“Actually, I do mind,” Stiles says, standing up. He feels his way around the edge of the desk and puts his hand over Kate’s. “You see, you might just be safer in here than out there.”

As if on cue, a howl sounds from outside the open front door.

Derek nearly shifts back to human right then because that’s his mother’s howl, his alpha’s howl, and it’s being answered by his whole family. Dad, Laura, Cora, even Peter.

His throat convulses with the urge to let loose a howl of his own. Kate digs her nails in and jerks him again.

“I still have my leverage,” she says.

Stiles laughs. “No, you don’t.”

“And what are you going to do about it?” Kate demands. “You don’t think that I know you’re blind? Do you remember who blinded you?”

“Oh, I know your dad claims that honor. But, did you know that I’m not always blind?”

Stiles bows his head close to Derek’s, touching their noses. When he draws back, his eyes are white, no pupil, no iris. Derek blinks, and his vision wavers, like he’s underwater.

He understands only when Stiles turns to Kate, and the blood drains from her face. Derek isn’t looking at Kate. _Stiles_ is.

Stiles is connected to him, seeing through his eyes.

Derek laughs to himself because now he really is a seeing-eye dog.

Stiles smiles, snapping his fingers. Kate flies backward, her hand ripped from Derek’s scruff. She falls out into the street where Derek’s uncle jumps on her back, jaws snapping down on her neck.

Stiles sighs, head sinking down again so that he can press his nose to Derek’s again. “Go on, big guy. Go to your family. Told you I’d help you.”

Derek wastes no time in shifting back and scrambling to the hook in the corner where he keeps his backpack. He dresses quickly, leaving the last buttons undone because his hands are shaking too hard.

“Are you sure?” he asks, one foot on the doorstep. He knows that Stiles isn’t reliant on him. He’s been blind for a long time now. He knows his shop better than Derek ever could. He doesn’t break pots (although Derek suspects that was because Stiles was upset at the time).

Stiles waves at him—or rather, the wall next to Derek. It makes him grin because he knows Stiles knows exactly where he’s standing.

The moment he passes Stiles’ wards, he is embraced by five large wolves all in various shifts. Laura and his mother are fully shifted into wolves while his father, Peter, and Cora are all in their beta shifts.

There are apologies and kisses exchanged in equal parts.

Then, when they finally pull back, and his mother, naked, beautiful, his _mom_ , holds his face, thumbs brushing over his cheeks, wiping away tears Derek was not aware he’s crying.

“Come home with us,” she says. “Please, baby. Come home with us.”

Derek glances back at the bookshop. He can see Stiles hiding in the shadows by the door, listening to them. He waves at them, and Derek thinks his magic is helping him “see” right now.

“I can’t,” he says to his mom. “I’m sorry. I think I already am home.”

Mom beams at him. “Then it’s settled: we’re moving to Beacon Hills. There’s a large preserve nearby that is perfect for full-moon runs. There’s already an empty house out there. All we have to do is sign the paperwork and it’s ours.”

“That’s wonderful,” Derek says. “Really, it’s great. Thank you. I love you. I’m sorry.” He hugs each of them again before going back to the shop to grab his backpack and promise Stiles that he’ll return.

Stiles beats him to it by saying, “So, you’re staying.”

“Yeah, looks that way.”

“Good. I could really use an assistant.”

“And you picked me?” Derek raises an eyebrow, leaning forward to press noses with Stiles so that they can share his vision again. Stiles laughs at him.

“I’ll always pick you, Derek,” he says. “Always.”

~ Fin ~

**Author's Note:**

> Stiles made two batches of the potion and used the second one to find the Hales. He then had Scott contact them and have them come up to Beacon Hills because he knew that Derek was dragging his feet about it. He also was aware of the enchantment on Derek’s wedding ring (in the diamonds). He purposefully used the ring as bait to catch Kate and orchestrate her downfall. Also, Stiles’ bookshop isn’t in a busy part of town, hence why no one notices the naked people. Derek’s timeline in New York: lived there his whole life with his family until when he was 14-15 they moved to Chula Vista, CA. Peter stayed behind with Derek so that he could finish high school. Peter was not aware of Kate targeting (grooming) Derek because she covered her tracks. When Derek turned 18, he opted to stay in New York with Kate (part of her plan) while Peter rejoined the family in Chula Vista. Kate employed a low-level mage (probably Jennifer Blake/Julia Baccari in this AU) to enchant the ring so that she could always find Derek and cover her tracks so that Derek’s family couldn’t find him. And that’s what didn’t make it in this story.
> 
> Also, please let me know if I missed a tag or two.
> 
> Posted at [my Tumblr](http://1989dreamer.tumblr.com/post/171444167685/always).
> 
> Thanks for reading!


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